Pitching the Bilge - Episode 174 - Acorn to Arabella: Journey of a Wooden Boat

Short run of merchandise available at acorntoarabella.com today: We’ve got planking offcuts of various sizes, frame offcuts from that closed-up port side of the boat, rejected copper rivets, and challenge coins from @SV Seeker. (Doug’s launching in a couple of weeks, hope you’re following!)

***BONUS CONTENT***: Also released today—this conversation with our naval architect, sailor, and racing friend Satchel regarding interior layout. We really dig into the details, and we wanted to present it to you totally uncut. See that here: https://youtu.be/RDxneIM3M8c

Carolyn is back, and shows us how to prepare oakum (hemp fiber) for this temporary, special, and particular caulking job solely in preparation for pitching the bilge. This isn’t like the caulking you might have seen around and about YouTube of late. The hemp, which along with being less expensive than cotton, is also more likely to release from the cooled pitch. We want the inboard edges of the planks to come together again when they’re swelled and when we’re ready to pay in the real caulking, and we explain how the oakum sets us up for success.

What’s the pitch? Jeffery’s Marine Glue No. 2, which is flexible, rubbery, and solid even at very warm temperatures. It’s a combination of bitumen and rosin, and when heated it flows into and conforms to the shape of difficult-to-reach bilge spaces created by the outboard faces of the backbone and the inboard faces of the planks. It’s also a very, very good wood preservative.

Through all this, we also get a brief look at what Carolyn carries for caulking tools, we receive some beautiful reefing hooks from Med Chandler of Ship’s Coy Forge (https://www.shipscoyforge.com/), and you meet the sweet, sweet ladybird who makes the shop her home every summer.

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Acorn to Arabella is a boat building project taking place in Granby, Massachusetts. Steve and Alix started as amateur boat builders building their own 38′ wooden boat in their backyard: designer William Atkin’s Ingrid with a Stormy Petrel’s gaff rig. These videos follow the journey from tree felling, to lumber milling, to lofting, to the lead keel pour and beyond—sharing details of the woodworking, carpentry, metal smithing, tool building, and tool maintenance that wooden boats command. This ultimate DIY project will continue well past launch, when they will travel and learn to cruise aboard the boat that they’ve built. Just kidding about all that, this channel is about a Siberian Laika named Akiva.

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